


A Little Souvenir

by mountain_born



Series: The Marvelous Tale of an Agent, an Archer, and an Assassin [20]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Doctor Who/Avengers Crossover Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2375435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountain_born/pseuds/mountain_born
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since they got back from their last trip with the Doctor, Phil has been acting a little bit off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Souvenir

**Author's Note:**

> First and always foremost, thanks and kudos to my awesome beta, **like-a-raven!**
> 
> The last fic in this series was on the heavy side, so now it's time for something fun and light! Also, as I build up to the events of the Avengers movie, I'm starting to work in more familiar faces from the Marvel Universe. This fic gave me the opportunity to play with Maria Hill a bit, and I find that I like her quite a bit.
> 
> This fic also served to reconfirm that if I turn my back on Clint and River for two seconds, they will start making out. Oh, kids. At least you're consistent. 
> 
> Fun with vocabulary: _Mashugana:_ (Yiddish) Nonsense, silliness, or craziness.

_September 2010_  
 _SHIELD Headquarters_  
 _New York_

“Is it just me or has Phil been a little bit off this week?” Clint asked.

From his seat at breakfast, Clint had a clear view of the entrance of the mess hall and he saw Coulson wander in. Nothing about his friend _looked_ off. Coulson was outfitted in his standard grey suit and he had a few files tucked under his arm: Agent of SHIELD, ready to save the world at a moment’s notice.

River twisted around in her chair so that she could observe. Apparently she didn’t see a discernible outward difference either.

“Off in what way?” she asked.

“In _that_ way,” Clint said.

Coulson had been headed for the food stations. As they watched, he slowly drifted to a halt in the middle of the room and stared off into space for a couple of seconds before shaking himself and continuing on to pick up a tray. That was weird, at least in Clint’s book. Coulson was one of the most pathologically focused people he’d ever met. Zoning out in the middle of a stroll was outside the norm.

Clint was trained to notice things outside the norm, and it wasn’t the first time he’d seen Coulson do something like that over the last few days. 

River turned back around and reached for her mug of tea.

“I’m sure he’s just tired,” she said. “We all are. Four missions in six weeks, plus two trips with the Doctor? I know I’m knackered. I could do with a week at the cabin. Possibly a month.”

Clint diverted his gaze from Coulson to grin at River in commiseration.

“Hell, you know I’m in,” he said.

Getting away for a month probably wasn’t feasible, but SHIELD could give them a week. Clint felt about five shades less exhausted just thinking about it; a week in a tiny, two-room cabin in the West Virginia mountains in the middle of ten acres of woods. It was the first piece of property Clint had ever owned. Well, jointly owned. He and River had bought it, off the books, about a year ago. 

It had kind of been a symbolic thing. Clint and River had gone through a rocky patch after the Doctor’s very first visit to SHIELD. The Time Lord’s sudden appearance in their lives had forced River to come clean about a lot of secrets she’d been keeping (like her entire life prior to 2005). She’d felt exposed, Clint had felt betrayed, and, well, it hadn’t been easy there for a while. They’d come out on the other side if it stronger, though. That was what the cabin represented: _We’re in this together._

On a more practical note, it was a great place to go to just get the hell away from everything for a while. River was right about them needing a break. They’d barely had a chance to breathe between missions, and while traveling with the Doctor was an amazing experience, it wasn’t what you’d call restful.

Three days ago, they’d been in the Forest of Floon to see the mass spawning of something called the verda-moths. As trips with the Doctor went, that one had actually ranked pretty low on the “fraught with danger” scale. The verda-moths, according to the Doctor, only reproduced once every forty-seven years and, in spite of their ordinary buggy appearance, were actually highly sentient and intelligent.

To Clint it had still just looked like tens of thousands of winged insects getting laid in mid-air. It had been a weird thing to be standing in the middle of.

Speaking of weird. . .

“Morning,” Coulson said, joining Clint and River at their table. Clint was just about to return the sentiment when his eyes landed on Coulson's tray.

"Ah. Phil?"

"Yeah?" Coulson said, stirring creamer into his coffee.

"What's with the eggs?"

Coulson was a simple, straightforward guy, and that applied as much to his food as it did to anything else. Scrambled eggs with bacon and toast about his speed. Five hardboiled eggs slipping around on a plate was something else.

The wedge of melon was fairly weird, too. Coulson hated melon.

"What's with. . . ?" Coulson looked down at his tray. Clint saw him blink like he was trying to make sure his eyes were behaving.

"Jesus," he said, pushing his tray away. "I must be really out of it this morning."

"Ever so slightly," River said. Her forehead was wrinkled up in concern.

"I'm going back for some cereal. Do you guys want anything?" Coulson asked, getting up from the table again.

Clint and River silently shook their heads.

"We should see if we can get him to take some time off," Clint said once Coulson was out of earshot.

"The sooner, the better," River replied, nodding in agreement.

*****

Maria Hill walked down the corridor, ignoring the curious side-eyes she was getting from subordinate agents. She’d been getting a lot of those lately as Fury’s newly-promoted second-in-command, interspersed with a few hostile looks here and there.

Hill had been prepared for that when she’d accepted the promotion. She knew she had not been the obvious choice to be Fury’s second. She had only been with SHIELD for three years, having made a lateral move over from the FBI. She hadn’t come up through the organization’s ranks and training system. And, to call a spade a spade, she wasn’t well-liked. Hill had a certain reputation for refusing to cut anyone any slack, Fury included. 

She cut Fury less slack than anyone else.

What most people didn’t seem to realize was that those were precisely the reasons Fury had offered her the promotion in the first place. Hill had been quick to accept; there hadn’t been any _I’ll need time to think it over._ She had a chance to make a real difference here with SHIELD. Fortunately for Hill, she had never worried much about being popular. She had the support of the few people who mattered, like Phil Coulson. The man and his two agents skated on the edge of her patience on a regular basis, but Coulson was a solid colleague. They worked well together.

Hill was Fury’s right hand. Coulson was his one good eye. As far as Hill was concerned it was a good division of labor.

As Hill had expected, she found Coulson up to his elbows in paperwork. He didn’t even notice her when she came to stand in the doorway. Or when she cleared her throat. Or when she said his name. Twice.

“Earth to Phillip Coulson!”

“Huh?” Coulson’s head jerked up in surprise. If he were anyone else, Hill would have asked him if he’d had a little too much fun last night.

“Please tell me that’s the Kiev report you’re working so hard on,” Hill said, raising her eyebrows at the pile of papers on Coulson’s desk.

“What? Oh, yeah. Kiev.” Coulson shuffled around some papers on his desk and looked up with a sheepish smile. “It’s coming along. Sorry for the delay. I’m just spread a little thin this week.”

Hill couldn’t dispute that. Strike Team Delta had been running pretty much non-stop for the last month and a half. Hill would be the first to admit that she had her reservations about this particular team, not Coulson so much as his agents. Barton had been a circus performer turned jailbird when he’d been recruited by SHIELD. Song had been some sort of screwed up child-mercenary that Barton had brought home like a stray cat. Together they had a insular, worryingly co-dependent partnership and seemed to make a hobby out of seeing how far they could bend rules before they snapped.

Still, unorthodox as they might be, they got the job done. That meant that Strike Team Delta clocked a lot of missions for SHIELD.

“I’ll tell you what,” Hill said. “Get your report to me by tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do about cutting you guys some extra R&R time.”

Hill had been planning on doing just that anyway. There wasn’t anything to be gained by burning out good agents.

“You’ve got a deal,” Coulson said. He looked a little relieved. “How are things with you? Anything new on the Stark situation?”

Hill couldn’t quite hold back a grimace. Tony Stark’s kidnapping in Afghanistan was causing a lot of shrill screaming at high levels. Some people were lamenting that he might be dead and therefore the world had lost a genius in the world of weapons design. Others were more concerned that he was still alive and was going to be coerced into making bombs for the wrong people.

Either way, Fury had his hands full. SHIELD was helping with the search effort, and the Director had been off-base for a week meeting with top brass from at least three different organizations.

“That good, huh?” Coulson asked.

“No news. At least, nothing that I’m at liberty to share,” Hill said. “I can tell you that Fury expects to be back in three days.” She raised an eyebrow that she knew Coulson would recognize as amusement. “So, better get your report in before then.”

“Right,” Coulson responded with a half-smile. “I’ll have this done soon.”

*****

When Hill had left, Coulson looked down at what was most definitely not the Kiev report.

 _Escape Scenario #37._ Coulson was down to the contingency addendums on this one. He flipped back through the pages of handwritten notes, counting as he went. It had been a productive morning. This was the eleventh scenario he’d drafted so far today. Coulson pulled out his desk drawer and took out a stack of computer printouts: _Escape Scenarios #1 – 26,_ yesterday’s work.

Escape scenarios were important in this line of work. Any mission was only as good as its exit strategy. Coulson couldn’t really say why he was so preoccupied with them this week, but it never hurt to have some extra tools in the kit.

He knew that he should probably table this project for the time being, though, and get to work on Kiev. He’d had good intentions when he’d sat down at his desk this morning. Coulson had never been one to get behind on his field reports, if for no other reason than because digging out from under a backlog of paperwork was not his idea of a good time. 

They’d gotten back from Kiev on Saturday night. The in-person debrief had been Sunday. On Monday the Doctor had turned up to take them to the Forest of Floon to see sentient alien moths. That trip had actually been a nice break. The Forest had been beautiful and, for a change, nothing had tried to kill them. 

Ever since they’d returned though, Coulson had had a hard time getting his ass back in gear. It was Thursday now, and all he had to show for his efforts on Kiev were a few balled-up pieces of paper in his trash can.

Coulson piled up all of the escape scenarios and dropped the lot into the drawer, pushing it closed. It was time to get on Kiev, just as soon as he got some coffee.

As he walked briskly toward the break room, Coulson pushed aside the niggling little feeling in the back of his brain that said that something was wrong. It wasn’t like him to have trouble concentrating, getting a job done. Then there had been that weird space-out at breakfast with the eggs. Clint wasn’t going to let him live that one down anytime soon. 

He was distracted. That, in and of itself, wasn’t really a red flag. Not even Phillip Coulson was one-hundred percent focused every waking moment of the day. But this was a little beyond normal distraction, wasn’t it?

 _You’re just tired,_ Coulson told himself as he pushed through the door. Even Hill had all but said that Strike Team Delta was overworked. If that wasn’t an endorsement of the _spread too thin_ theory, he didn’t know what was.

Coulson blinked, stumbling to a halt, as he got hit with a face full of late summer sunlight. _What the hell?_

This wasn’t the break room. This was the balcony off of the second-floor lobby. 

Coulson saw Agent Sitwell, who was standing by the railing, quickly whip a cigarette out of sight. 

“Coulson?” Sitwell said. “Is everything all right?”

_You’re just tired. That’s all it is._

“I’m fine,” Coulson said. “I just needed a little air.”

He turned on his heel and went back inside, collected a mug of coffee from the break room, and made it back to his office without any more unconscious detours. By the time he sat down at his desk, the absent-minded feeling had waned and Coulson felt more alert.

He pulled a fresh legal pad out of his desk and uncapped his pen. In careful block letters, he wrote _Escape Scenario #38_ across the top.

Coulson got back to work.

*****

“Is Phil coming to dinner?” River asked.

Clint was frowning at his phone. River was watching him in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her hair. She saw him shake his head.

“No. He says that he’s good and he’ll see us in the morning. I guess he’s still working.” Clint pocketed his phone. “Should we be worried?”

“I’m not sure that Phil skipping out on a meal with us is a cause for general alarm,” River said, tying her hair back. “He might be relaxing, taking it easy. Maybe he’s going out.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Clint met River’s eyes in the mirror with a rueful smile. “The guy thinks he gets to have a life without us, I guess.”

“Silly man.” 

River knew what Clint meant, though. The three of them were close. They were a family in all but blood, and a tightly-knit one at that. In the field (where they had practically lived for the last month and a half) that bond was amplified due to heightened stakes, the need for mutual support, and physical proximity.

There was always a bit of an adjustment period when they got back home from extended missions. They had to get used to not being right in each others’ pockets, to not being a three-person unit. Sometimes it was difficult.

On the other hand, River thought as Clint came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, there was a lot to be said for it being just the two of them.

“I thought you were hungry,” River said, teasing. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against Clint’s shoulder as he started kissing her neck. “I’m pretty sure the words _I’m going to gnaw my own arm off_ were used.”

“I reprioritized,” Clint said. 

River had no problem with this. Clint’s hands were migrating to some interesting areas.

“Let me guess. Something’s come up?”

“You could say that.”

It was probably just as well that they weren’t meeting up with anyone for dinner this evening.

*****

Coulson almost had this figured out. He was sure of it. The answer to this puzzle was almost within his reach. He just had to make the final leap.

His office floor was covered with papers which crunched under his feet as he paced the length of the room. All of them were drafts of escape scenarios. Coulson didn’t know how many there were. He had stopped counting because, at a certain point, he realized that trying to cover every escape contingency wasn’t the point.

The point was to formulate the _ultimate_ escape plan. 

It had called for a bigger drawing board.

Coulson folded his arms as he studied the wall of his office. He had ditched his coat and tie at some point over the course of the day and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He knew that he had all of the pieces here, just not the key that would make it all fall into place.

His desk, much like the floor, was covered in paper. Coulson had to root around for a moment until he found his cell phone. Sitting down on the edge of his desk, he dialed a number in Arlington.

The call rang several times before someone picked up. “Hello?”

“Val? How do you escape from something when there’s no place to escape to?” he asked.

There was dead silence on the line for a moment before Valerie replied. “Phil?”

“Yeah, who else would it be?” Coulson wandered closer to the wall, studying his work. “This is the part I keep getting stuck on. If an extraction is vital, but there is absolutely no viable extraction point, what do you do?”

“Um.” Coulson could hear Valerie shifting about a bit. “I don’t know. Do you need to be extracted from something? Where are you, anyway?”

“I’m on base. In my office.”

“In your. . .Phil, it’s 3:30 in the morning.”

“What?” 

Coulson checked his watch. Then he checked the time and date on his computer. 

“Shit, Valerie, I’m sorry,” Coulson said. How had he not realized what time it was? “I’m sorry. Go back to bed. I’ll call you later.”

“No, Phil. Wait,” Valerie said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Actually, Coulson felt great considering he’d been working for twenty hours without even realizing it. 

Come to think of it, had he slept the night before? Coulson couldn’t remember.

“Okay.” Coulson got the impression that Valerie was choosing her words very carefully. “Well, I don’t know anything about extraction plans. Maybe you should talk to your friends about it. Clint and River? Are they there?”

“They’re in their quarters, I assume,” Coulson said. “Well, his quarters or her quarters. It’s usually a toss-up.” Coulson frowned. “You think I should ask them?”

It actually wasn’t a bad idea.

“Yeah. In fact, I think you should go ask them _right now,_ ” Valerie said. “And then call me back sometime tomorrow, or as soon as you can. Let me know how it went.”

*****

Clint was normally a very light sleeper, as was River. It was pure survival instinct for both of them. SHIELD agents had to be able to be on their feet and alert (and sometimes on the defensive) at a second’s notice no matter what the hour of day or night.

A related survival skill was the ability to stay asleep through familiar, benign things. Clint’s mind knew how to recognize when it was River or Coulson moving around in a space and not a hostile threat. That was also why he always slept sounder in his quarters than he ever did in a safe house.

It was for this reason that there was a little bit of lag time between Clint registering that the door of his quarters had been opened and fully waking up to realize that there was someone in the room. Clint’s hand darted under his pillow for a weapon, and he was calculating how best to jump the dark figure standing in the middle of his quarters when he realized why the initial entry hadn’t woken him up.

“What the fu. . . _Phil?”_

“Good, you’re awake.” Coulson hooked a hand around Clint’s desk chair and dragged it over beside the bed, sitting down like he was pulling up a seat at lunch in the mess. He reached over to the nightstand and turned on the lamp. “I need to run something by you. Hi, River.”

River’s head had popped up too, eyes blinking in confusion, hair a wild tangle. Clint felt her quickly adjust the sheet, no doubt in an attempt to keep all three of them from winding up in therapy.

Coulson might be in need of some anyway, Clint thought. He had no idea what had happened since breakfast, but his S.O. had just keyed into his quarters in the middle of the night to discuss strategy and he had a mildly manic sort of gleam in his eye that Clint usually only saw when rare Captain America memorabilia was involved.

“I’m working on this escape scenario and I need some fresh perspective,” Coulson said, like they were in a fucking briefing. “There are a lot of moving parts, but I think I’m close to getting it locked down. The core if it is basically--”

“Phil?” Clint interrupted, too weirded out to give a shit about being polite. “What the hell are you doing in my quarters?”

Coulson looked genuinely surprised at being cut off. He stared at Clint and River for a second like he was confused, then an _Ah ha!_ moment visibly crossed his face. 

“Right.” Coulson pointed at the two of them. “This is awkward, isn’t it?”

“A little bit,” River said.

Coulson nodded. 

“We should go over this in my office anyway. All of the work is there,” he said, standing up and pulling the chair back to the desk. “I think it’ll be easier for you two to weigh in if you can get the visual. Get dressed and meet me back over at the Administration Center. Ten minutes,” Coulson called over his shoulder as he left Clint’s quarters.

When he was gone, Clint looked at River, who he figured was about as wide-eyed and open-mouthed as he was. They stared at each other for a moment, then jumped out of bed and scrambled for their clothes.

*****

“Okay,” River said. “Now is the time to officially start worrying.”

“I’ll say,” Clint replied. “Holy shit.”

In all the time she’d known him, River had never seen Coulson’s office in such a state of disarray. His desk was in chaos. There were papers scattered all over the floor, most of them crumpled from being walked on. The bookcases that usually lined the far wall had been half-emptied of their contents; books, manuals, and knickknacks were piled up on the sofa. The bookcases themselves had been pulled haphazardly over to the opposite side of the room.

The cleared swath of wall had been marked all over, from the floor almost all the way to the ceiling. River had never seen writing like this, for writing was precisely what it was. It wasn’t anything that she could read, but River had always been adept at languages thanks to the part of her genetics that the TARDIS had influenced. She knew a language when she saw it, could pick out the patterns in the seemingly random scramble of wavy lines and conjoined circles. 

Coulson was adding to the surreal mural with a black marker. River could see at least half a dozen markers in the debris on the floor. He must have been at this for hours. Coulson looked back over his shoulder at her and Clint. 

“Oh, good. You’re here,” he said as if they had just wandered into a briefing a few minutes late. He capped his marker. “This is what I have so far. The key is in here somewhere. I just have to find it. I thought a couple of fresh pairs of eyes would be good. So, what do you think?” Coulson asked.

River and Clint looked at each other. After five years, they didn’t have to speak aloud to know what the other was thinking.

At this moment, they were on exactly the same page.

*****

Clint Barton wasn’t a big believer in Higher Powers, but some days he found himself silently thanking the universe for small favors.

Like the fact that Coulson didn’t fight him and River on going to Medical. He _argued._ He seemed genuinely perplexed as to why they insisted on it, but he eventually went without them having to take him there by force. 

Luck stayed with them once they reached Medical. Dr. Judith Levine was on duty tonight. 

“You know,” Levine said to Clint and River as she came out of the exam room, “ever since the three of you inducted me into the _The Mashugana Is Out There_ Club, I’ve just been waiting to get a call in the middle of the night to deal with something that completely defies the laws of God and Sanity.” Levine raised her eyebrows at River. “But I always just assumed it would be _you._ ”

SHIELD was an agency full of secrets, and Clint was willing to bet that River Song was one of the biggest ones. On paper, River was just a SHIELD agent, if not exactly a typical one; twenty-three years old, highly intelligent, and exceptionally skilled, the product of an upbringing designed to make her a weapon. 

Well, most of that was accurate. River _had_ been raised to be a weapon. She _was_ highly intelligent and exceptionally skilled. At least some of that skill, though, came from the fact that she was seventy-eight years old, not twenty-three. She’d had decades to hone and develop natural talent into something truly formidable. Her age and some of her more off-the-wall abilities were rooted in her DNA, specifically, the parts of it that weren’t human.

River had some Time Lord in her. Having gotten to know the Doctor this past year, Clint had a new and deep appreciation of what that meant.

Only five people knew River’s secret. She’d let Clint and Coulson in first. Then, at Coulson’s urging, Director Fury and his predecessor, Director Meg Downing, had been told. Fury had promised to keep the secret, but insisted that a member of the Medical staff be brought into the inner circle as a precautionary measure. River had picked Dr. Levine.

Clint couldn’t say that Levine had been thrilled and honored and shit at being singled out, but she had rolled with it.

River lifted her shoulders in a apologetic shrug. “Better luck next time,” she said.

“So, what’s wrong with him?” Clint asked, nodding at the exam room window. The blinds were up and he could see Coulson sitting on the bed. He had a legal pad and a pen and was writing feverishly.

“I don’t know,” Levine said. When Clint turned back to her, she sighed impatiently. “Don’t glare at me. His blood samples are still on their way down the hall to the lab. I’ll hopefully know more once I see the results.”

“What do we know at this point?” River asked.

Levine consulted her data pad. “His vitals are within normal parameters. He’s lucid. Ish.” She glanced back at the exam room as Coulson flipped to a new page of his pad. “That’s actually notable considering that he says he hasn’t really slept in a couple of days. Obviously, he’s displaying obsessive behavior. He’s covering anything he can get his hands on with this.”

Levine fished a piece of paper covered in ballpoint scrawl out of the pocket of her lab coat. She handed it to Clint. “Is this the same as the artwork he was putting up on his walls?”

“That’s it,” Clint said, passing the sheet to River.

Levine nodded.

“I asked him what it was. He says he doesn’t really know beyond something about an extraction plan. He says that he hasn’t taken any drugs, legal or illegal. He’s never had issues with substance abuse, so I’m inclined to believe him unless his blood work turns up evidence to the contrary. Alternatively, he may have been exposed to something. Can either of you think of anything? Something that happened in Kiev, maybe?”

Clint had a sneaking suspicion that his glance was guilty as he looked aside at River. For her part, River had her eyes on the sheet of paper covered in Coulson’s weird marks. No, Coulson hadn’t been exposed to anything in Kiev that would account for his current behavior. But Kiev wasn’t the last place that they had been.

Could there have been something in the Forest?

Would Levine stroke out if they told her that they’d visited another alien planet with no biohazard precautions? She had not been happy when they’d returned from their little trip to Alfava Metraxis a few months back with futuristic anti-radiation meds in their bloodstreams. Clint finally got what that whole Jewish-mother-induced guilt thing was about.

The silence dragged on for a few seconds with Levine eyeing Clint and River. “All right,” she said at last. “You two think about that for a few minutes. I’m going to go down to the lab and make sure they’re putting a rush on that blood work. I’m sure I can trust the two of you to keep an eye on Agent Coulson while I’m gone.”

*****

River’s special skills had never included precognition, but she didn’t need it to know what Clint was going to say.

“Something must have happened in the Forest,” he said when Levine was out of earshot. “That has to be it. Like she said, he must have been exposed to something. The weird shit, the absent-minded stuff? It started up after we got back.”

River folded the sheet of paper. “I’d say it’s a good working theory,” she said.

“A good working theory?” Clint looked at her disbelievingly. “What else could it possibly be?”

Composure was another skill that River had had over seven decades to work on, which enabled her to refrain from groaning aloud and beating her head against a wall. The thing was, she knew that Clint was right. The odds clearly pointed to their last trip with the Doctor somehow being the catalyst for Coulson’s odd behavior. Sure, it could be something more mundane; an infection, a brain tumor, job stress. River didn’t believe for a second that that was the case, though.

She also knew what that ultimately meant.

“River, we have to call the Doctor,” Clint said. “If this ties back to the Forest, then Medical isn’t going to be equipped to handle it.”

“Doctor who?”

River and Clint both turned to find Maria Hill standing in the doorway.

*****

Maria Hill wasn’t one for keeping score on the job, so she did not mentally award herself a point for getting the drop on Hawkeye and Talon, tempting as it was. Hill wasn’t a big fan of needless competitive bullshit, office politics, and one-upmanship. That had been one of the reasons why she had left the FBI for SHIELD. The need-to-know quotient was higher than usual here, but they were all on the same side.

Hill was pretty sure that Barton and Song didn’t buy into that belief as strongly as she did. Half the time, the two agents seemed to consider themselves and Coulson to be an autonomous three-man club that just happened to reside within SHIELD. Hill respected the loyalty that the agents had to each other, but it made Barton and Song in particular frustrating to work with sometimes.

Take this particular moment, for instance. Hill watched Barton and Song take a half-step closer to each other, literally closing ranks. She wondered if they were even aware that they did things like that.

“Agent Hill,” Barton said. “What are you doing here?”

Hill raised a cool eyebrow. “Agent Coulson gets brought into Medical in the middle of the night showing symptoms of a possible psychotic break, and you think I’m not going to get a call?”

What part of _second-in-command_ did they not get? 

She didn’t point out that she should have gotten the call from one of _them._ Coulson was high enough up on the chain of command that his incapacitation could have been disruptive if there were an emergency and no one had been informed. Levine hadn’t called it in either, but Hill was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was paying attention to her patient first.

Dr. Kitteridge may have skirted close to overstepping his bounds by making the call, but Hill did need to know what was going on.

“Coulson’s not having a psychotic break,” Song said.

“I’d be very surprised if he were,” Hill replied. She’d read Coulson’s psych file. He had none of the potential markers. Frankly, if you didn’t lose your mind in your first five years with SHIELD, odds were good that you weren’t going to. “So, what’s wrong with him?”

Song and Barton exchanged a look. Barton cleared his throat.

“Well, Levine’s putting a rush on the blood work, so we won’t know anything until--”

“Agent Barton, I’d advise you to stop and think hard for a moment before you insult my intelligence,” Hill interrupted. “We are talking about the well-being of your supervising officer who, when last I checked, is also your friend. So, if the two of you know something that can help him, I’m ordering your to spit it out. Now.”

Enough with the secret club bullshit already.

Song was the one who spoke up, albeit with an attitude of great reluctance.

“We don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she said. “But we know someone who might be able to help.”

“The Doctor.” Hill folded her arms. “Can I take it that this is the alien time-traveler that Fury briefed me about?”

Judging by the looks on the agents’ faces, Hill was going to guess that the answer was _yes._

*****

It turned out, River was relieved to learn, that Hill didn’t know about _everything_ related to the Doctor.

Fury had briefed Hill on the broad strokes upon her promotion. She knew that the Doctor was an alien and a time traveler who visited Earth on a frequent basis. She knew that Clint, River, and Coulson had made contact with the Doctor on the SHIELD base last year and that the Doctor had apparently taken a liking to the three of them. She knew that they had been in contact with the Doctor since his first visit and had traveled with him multiple times now.

“I’m personally not sure about the advisability of that,” Hill said. “Fury seems to be undecided as to whether the Doctor is a tentative asset or an outright threat. No doubt he’s banking on the three of you cultivating a relationship with him to pay off in more intel.”

It seemed that Fury had kept both his word and River’s secret, though. Hill didn’t know anything about River’s deeper connection to the Doctor. That meant that River wouldn’t have to strangle the Director to death with his own eye patch when next she saw him.

The fact that Hill already knew the basics actually made things a little easier. At least it meant that there was less that Clint and River had to explain before they called in their “consultant.”

Clint was the one who made the call. River knew that they needed the Doctor’s input, and she was even sure that the Doctor would want to help Coulson if he was able. At the same time, River had been taught to hate and distrust the Doctor for most of her life. That didn’t just go away in one night, or even in one year. She found that she balked (mentally and physically) at the idea of calling the Time Lord and asking him to come to the rescue.

No doubt the Academy would be proud of the strength of their indoctrination, River thought wryly.

Thank God for Clint and his ability to know what she was thinking. He just looked at River, nonchalantly pulled out his phone, and hit #11 on his speed dial.

River could see that Hill was listening with interest. So was Dr. Levine, who had returned from the lab.

“Doc? Hey, it’s Clint. I’m okay. What? Yeah, this is a really good connection.” River saw Hill raise her eyebrows. “Look, I’m calling because we have a problem here. No, nothing’s blowing up. Something’s wrong with Phil. Well, I was hoping you could tell us. He’s been a little off ever since we got back from the Forest, and tonight he started drawing this stuff all over the walls of his office. Weird stuff. Check your inbox. I sent you a couple of pictures.”

Clint waited patiently for the Doctor to come back on the line. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds.

“When did it start? I don’t know for sure. I’d say the graffiti compulsion started less than twenty-four hours ago. So, do you know what it. . .Doc? Doc?”

“What did he say?” River asked.

“He hung up,” Clint replied.

River could have sworn that Hill looked just a little bit let down.

Dr. Levine, on the other hand, just looked confused.

“What the hell is that noise?” she asked.

River was pretty sure she heard a muttered _Holy shit_ from Hill as the TARDIS materialized right in the middle of SHIELD Medical.

*****

As a general rule, the Doctor had no use for protocol. At best it was a colossal waste of time and energy, and at worst it effectively strangled any purposeful action. It was all about authority which had to be one of the most useless phenomena in the universe. The Doctor didn’t fancy kowtowing to people who thought they were in change simply by dint of possessing a rank or a title that said, _Hey, look at me! I’m in charge!_ As for the flip side, he could live the rest of his life quite happily without anyone calling him _sir._

He’d fought his war, thank you very much. Though even in those days he’d not given much of a damn about protocol.

The Doctor knew that SHIELD loved its protocols, though. Practically adored them. He also had a hunch that River and Clint were probably flirting with being in trouble over those protocols by associating with him. With that in mind, the Doctor corralled his impatience for a few minutes so that he, Amy, and Rory could be introduced to Agent Maria Hill and Dr. Judith Levine.

After all, Coulson wasn’t in _imminent_ danger of dying. They could spare a little time.

“So, you’re the one who keeps getting these three into trouble,” Dr. Levine said, shaking his hand.

“Oh, don’t sell them short,” the Doctor replied with a smile. “They get themselves into plenty of trouble all on their own.”

Agent Hill’s greeting was a bit cooler. Oh, this one was a stickler for protocol, the Doctor could tell.

“Agent Hill is Fury’s new second-in-command,” River told him.

“Ah, indeed! Congratulations. And quite possibly, my sympathies,” the Doctor said, shaking Agent Hill’s hand. “I’m the Doctor. These are my companions, the Ponds, Amy and Rory.” The Doctor clapped his hands together. “Now that that’s over with, someone direct me to Agent Coulson.”

“Before I allow that,” Dr. Levine said, “I have to ask, are you qualified to practice medicine? On humans?”

“Dr. Levine.” The Doctor beamed. “I’m not qualified to practice medicine on _anyone._ But I do travel with my own nurse.” He nodded his head at Rory. “And from what Clint and River have said, you yourself are an excellent practitioner. I’m sure that together we can cure Coulson of his little bug.”

“Bug?” Clint asked.

“Bug,” the Doctor said. “First things first, Dr. Levine. I’m going to need some equipment.”

*****

Coulson was starting to understand why Clint and River had been so insistent that he go to Medical.

When he’d been working in his office, he’d felt great. Exhilarated. Driven. Inspired, even. Now that he was stuck in an exam room he was starting to recognize those feelings for what they truly were: compulsion.

Coulson cooled his heels on the exam room bed for a few minutes after Dr. Levine left. He could see her talking to Clint and River who were hovering outside. Then his gaze fell on the notepad and pen that had been left behind on the table.

Apparently he hadn’t reached the point of being distrusted with sharp objects yet.

Coulson picked up the pad and started to write, covering page after page with symbols in ballpoint ink. When he ran out of paper and the floor was half-covered with yellow pages, he moved on to the room’s whiteboard. His focus narrowed, shutting out everything but the message that he couldn’t decipher. Coulson quickly ran out of whiteboard and moved on to the exam room wall.

He didn’t even notice when people came into the room until someone patted him on the shoulder and then reached around and plucked the marker out of his hand. Coulson turned.

“Hello, Phil,” the Doctor said.

“Doctor.” A few glib greetings ran through Coulson’s head, but what came out instead was, “Please tell me you know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

It was kind of strange how reassuring the Doctor could be when he wanted to be. He rested his hand on Coulson’s shoulder.

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” he said. “Agent Coulson, I suspect you’ve brought home a little souvenir from our trip to the Forest.”

*****

Clint wasn’t used to seeing Coulson look nervous. Seriously, Coulson could have his ass planted on a nuclear warhead that was counting down into the single digits and the man wouldn’t break a sweat. Here in Medical, though, on an exam bed surrounded by people, he looked ready to jump out of his own skin.

It was the helplessness factor. Clint hated it, too. No field agent he knew handled that kind of exposure well, and Coulson was worse than most. 

Coulson eyed the Doctor, Dr. Levine, and Rory as they wheeled in half a dozen pieces of diagnostic equipment, including an ultrasound machine.

“Oh, God. You’re not going to tell me I’m pregnant, are you?” he asked as the Doctor started wiring the machines together, presumably according to some logic of his own.

“Of course he isn’t,” Rory said. “This is just another way to get information, right? The more information the Doctor gets, the easier time he’ll have helping you.” 

It was easy to see why Rory was such a good nurse. His bedside manner actually seemed to calm Coulson down a little bit.

Too bad the Doctor had to chime in.

“That depends on how you define _pregnant,_ ” he said, finishing his Rube-Goldberg-ing and plugging a cable into the base of his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor fired up the screwdriver and rested the tip against the side of Coulson’s head. “If my hunch is correct, Agent Coulson does indeed have a baby on board.”

“How is that helping?” Rory asked.

In a manner of speaking, the Doctor turned out to be right. Clint couldn’t decide if _pregnant_ was better or worse than _you have an alien larva nesting in your skull_ so he decided to cut the Doctor some slack for the dramatics.

“That would be the culprit,” the Doctor said. He used the sonic to zoom in on the image on the exam room’s view screen. “It looks like it’s made itself nicely at home up against your frontal lobe.”

The worm-like creature wriggled a little bit. Clint was pretty sure he felt his own grey matter crawl at the sight.

“I’ll take your word for that.” Coulson was not looking at the screen. Everyone else in the room was staring with fascination.

“Would you look at that?” Amy said, patting Coulson’s knee. “You’re like a giant bottle of tequila.”

“Thank you for that.”

“No, she’s got a point,” Hill said. Her arms were folded and her expression was as dry as it ever was, but Clint could have sworn he heard a note of amusement in her voice. “Would you care to explain how you got a worm inside your head, Agent Coulson?”

“I’d love it if someone would explain to me how he’s still walking and talking,” Dr. Levine said. “He has a parasite in his brain. He should be incapacitated.”

“And why is it making him write. . .that?” River added, nodding to the wall that Coulson had started to scrawl on.

“And how do we get rid of it?” Clint asked.

The Doctor held up his hands. “One thing at a time, everyone.” He tucked his sonic screwdriver back into his coat pocket. “To answer Agent Hill’s question first, he probably just inhaled one of the airborne larva when we watched the spawning in the Forest of Floon. And it must be a particularly hardy individual at that, to have survived. Then we left its native planet, so it couldn’t work its own way out. It would have died in an alien environment. It had to make the best of where it was, namely inside Agent Coulson. But it knew that that solution was temporary at best.”

“You talk like it’s intelligent,” Hill said.

“Well, it is,” the Doctor said. “And it’s been attempting to communicate with you,” he added to Coulson. “Granted, it’s been limited to secreting chemicals straight into your brain, but really you have to give it points for trying. That’s why you’ve been obsessed with escape scenarios and why you’ve been writing that all over anything that holds still.” The Doctor pointed at the writing on the wall. “That? That’s not gibberish. It’s a distress call. The larva wants _out_ of your head, but it doesn’t have anywhere to go. ”

“Extraction plans with no extraction point,” Coulson said.

“Quite,” the Doctor replied. “Well, that’s sorted now, because I’m here. I can house it in a survival pod until we can get it home.”

*****

“That’s an alien survival pod?” Amy asked, eying the small plastic globe, half-full of greenery, that the Doctor had produced from the bowels of the TARDIS. It looked for all the world like the thing one of her primary school teachers had kept pet turtles in.

“It is,” the Doctor replied. He was busy affixing some small sonic sensors to Agent Coulson’s temples. Amy thought that Coulson didn’t look especially pleased at the proceeding.

“You know, you haven’t exactly explained how this is supposed to work,” Coulson said.

“Haven’t I?” the Doctor asked. “Well, it’s really quite simple. These little beauties will emit a frequency that the larva will essentially recognize as an all-clear signal, at which point it’ll exit through a bodily orifice.”

_Nope. That is not the face of a happy camper._

“Do I get to pick which one?” Coulson asked.

“I’m afraid not,” the Doctor said. “It’s probably grown a bit too large for a tear duct, so most likely it’ll be one of your ears, your nose, or your mouth. Oh, no you don’t.”

The Doctor pushed Coulson back down as the agent made to get up off the exam table with a _Sod this_ look on his face.

“Just relax,” the Doctor said. “Everything will be fine. Give me an hour and you’ll never know you had an alien life form in your brain.”

******

The Doctor was almost as good as his word. Seventy-five minutes after he started broadcasting his harmonic frequencies, Coulson got to experience the skin-crawling sensation of an alien worm squirming its way out of his left ear.

He didn’t think he could be required to turn in his bad-ass card for keeping his eyes squeezed shut during the process. Come on. There was a _worm_ slithering out of his _ear._ Coulson figured he got points for not throwing up.

“Holy shit, Phil.” Coulson couldn’t see Clint, but he could the hear amazement in the other man’s voice. “You should see this.”

“No, I really shouldn’t.”

“You want to name it?”

“You want to spend five hours a day running laps?”

By the time Dr. Levine had finished examining Coulson and allowed him to sit up, he could feel his sense of humor returning along with is metal equilibrium. 

“So, boy or girl?” he asked the Doctor. Coulson was sitting on the side of the exam table, a pad of gauze pressed to his ear.

“Sexless until about the age of twenty-five,” the Doctor replied. He was holding the little terrarium up to eye-level. The verda-moth larva, which resembled a translucent, pale green caterpillar, was making itself at home on a bed of moss. “Look at you,” the Doctor said. “You’re a little beauty, you are. We’ll have you home soon.”

“And Phil’s going to be okay?” River asked. 

“As good as new,” the Doctor replied. 

“How long can the larva live inside the pod?” Rory asked curiously.

“Oh, several days,” the Doctor said. “It’s top of the line. I picked it up at a swap meet on Aranel V. I traded a box of Weetabix for it.”

“So, you don’t have to take off right away, then?” Hill asked. 

Coulson and the others turned to look at her. Hill had been largely quiet during the whole worm-extraction process, but Coulson hadn’t even come close to forgetting she was there. In fact, he’d been all too well aware that his superior was watching an alien worm being pied-pipered out of his brain.

Hill seemed nonplussed at the sudden collective attention. She was watching the Doctor.

“I wondered if you’d come down to my office for while,” Hill said.

The Doctor and his companions looked confused for a moment. Coulson saw a vaguely horrified look cross Amy’s face, and she leaned sideways to stage-whisper to the Doctor. “Oh, my God. Is she flirting with you?”

Clint started to cough, earning himself a firm _thwap_ on the back from River. Dr. Levine quickly turned to work on dismantling the diagnostic equipment. Hill looked like sheer willpower was the only thing keeping her eyes from rolling right out of their sockets.

“I’m. . .not sure,” the Doctor said warily.

“SHIELD has a lot of questions for you, Doctor,” Hill said. “An exchange of information would be considered a sign of good will. We’d be interested in learning more about your ship, for example. Anything related to your technology. Anything you might know about alien races in close proximity to Earth. . .”

“Oh, you want a debriefing!” The Doctor looked relieved. “I’m sorry, Agent Hill. I don’t do debriefings. Debriefings are boring, that’s what I’m always telling these three. Fortunately, they’ve mostly given up on insisting on them. They’ve said that you’re quite the taskmaster on the subject, though.”

“Oh, have they?” Coulson inwardly cringed as Hill raised an eyebrow at him, Clint, and River. Then, to his surprise, her lips twitched upward briefly in what looked like an amused smile. “Well, you understand, I had to try while you were here, Doctor.”

“Of course. I appreciate your understanding. We should really get going before you decide to summon people with guns to reissue the invitation. Amy? Rory?” The Doctor passed the verda-moth in its survival pod to Rory and shooed them toward the TARDIS. “Agents,” he added over his shoulder to Coulson, Clint, and River, “until next time.”

There always did seem to be a next time, Coulson thought, as the TARDIS fired up and faded out of existence.

*****

“No, really. I’m fine,” Coulson said.

“Are you sure?” Coulson could hear Valerie’s concern over the phone. “You called me in the middle of the night rambling about escape plans. I didn’t know what to think.”

Coulson glanced at the far wall. The furniture was still in complete disarray, but Patrick Easton, the plant manager, had already had people in to paint over the wall of his office. The mural of alien distress signals was now hidden behind three layers of institutional off-white. SHIELD confidentiality protocols were such that Coulson knew that neither Patrick nor his people would speak of it.

“I’m sorry about that,” Coulson said. “It turns out that I picked up a bug on our last mission and it had led to a chemical imbalance. It made me act a little. . .”

“Nuts?” Valerie asked.

“Yeah,” Coulson said.

He felt bad for lying to Valerie. Coulson had never told her anything about the Doctor or finding out about River’s origins. Those weren’t really his secrets to tell. But Coulson had long since gotten used to tuning out guilt where Valerie was concerned. If he couldn’t do that, he would have had to have given up seeing her a long time ago.

“It was a good call, telling me to go get Clint and River,” Coulson added to Valerie. “They took me straight to Medical.”

“Yes, well, I don’t have a number for anyone at SHEILD. It was the best thing I could think of to do.”

Coulson didn’t miss the slightly pointed tone. He knew that it bothered Valerie a little that she didn’t know anyone from his adult life. She _heard_ a lot about Clint and River, enjoyed teasing him about “his kids,” but she’d never met or even spoken to them. Coulson kept Valerie as far removed from SHIELD as he possibly could. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best way he knew to ensure her safety. Coulson didn’t ever want to tip anyone off that Valerie could be a pressure point.

Besides, he selfishly liked having a part of his life that had nothing to do with SHIELD.

Valerie did make a valid point, though.

“There’s a number I can give you,” he said. “For emergencies. It’ll allow you to contact the appropriate people if you ever need to reach someone at SHIELD.”

It was the SHIELD equivalent of the main switchboard, but it was the safest option and better than nothing.

As Coulson ended his call with Valerie, he heard a tell-tale shuffling outside his door. He stayed put for a moment, waiting to see if someone was going to knock. When nothing came, Coulson got up to investigate.

There was a paper bag sitting outside his office door; a folded piece of paper was taped to it. Coulson looked up and down the hall and saw a slim, dark-haired figure disappear around the corner.

Hill.

Coulson plucked the folded paper off of the bag and opened it. The note was handwritten on SHIELD letterhead.

_Coulson,_

_Consider this your Get Well gift. I’m glad you’re better._

_M. Hill_

_P.S. Get your report on Kiev to me by tomorrow morning, or the worm, as they say, will turn._

Curious, Coulson reached into the paper bag and pulled out a bottle of tequila with what had to be the granddaddy of all worms floating in the bottom. 

With a groan that turned into a laugh, Coulson retreated back into his office.

Time to get back to work.


End file.
